WikiLeaks at the Forefront of 21st-Century Journalism

If there was ever doubts
about whether the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, is a
journalist, recent events erase those doubts and put him at the
forefront of a movement to democratize journalism and empower people.

The U.S. Department of Justice
is still trying to find a way to prosecute Assange and others associated
with WikiLeaks. A key to their prosecution is claiming he is not a journalist,
but that weak premise has been made laughable by recent events.

The list of WikiLeaks revelations has become astounding. During the North African and Middle
East revolts, WikiLeaks published documents that provided people with
critical information. The traditional media has relied on WikiLeaks
publications and is now also emulating WikiLeaks.

The United States used some
WikiLeaks publications to show that it had been critical of Egypt,
exerted private
pressure, and supported democracy activists like Mohammad
ElBaradei. Despite
what has been said in the traditional media, WikiLeaks published
materials with an agenda for transparency and an informed public, not
an intent to harm the U.S.

WikiLeaks informed the Bahrain
public about their government’s cozy
relationship with
the U.S. It described a $5 billion joint venture with Occidental Petroleum
and $300 million in U.S. military sales. ABC
reported on WikiLeaks
documents that described the close relationship between U.S. and Bahrain
intelligence agencies and how the U.S.
Navy is the foundation
of Bahrain’s national security. This was emphasized
to Gen. David Petraeus
along with their common opposition to Iran and al-Qaeda in Iraq and their
desire for U.S. troops to stay in Iraq.

WikiLeaks has been criticized
by U.S. enemies. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described WikiLeaks as U.S. “intelligence warfare,”
saying: “These documents are prepared and released by the U.S. government
in a planned manner and in pursuance of a goal.” WikiLeaks was criticized
by Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, who shut
down Facebook in
Tripoli and sporadically shut off the Internet to prevent Libyans from
knowing the truth. No doubt WikiLeaks
publications embarrassed
Gadhafi, adding fuel to internal opposition to his regime.

Jeff Jarvis of the City University
of New York’s Graduate
School of Journalism writes:
“We in journalism must recognize that WikiLeaks is an element of a
new ecosystem of news. It is a new form of the press. So we must defend
its rights as media. If we do not, we could find our own rights curtailed.
Asking whether WikiLeaks should be stopped is exactly like asking whether
this newspaper should be stopped when it reveals what government does
not want the public to know. We have been there before; let us never
return.”

The Guardian, a WikiLeaks partner, wrote in an editorial: “There is a need as never before
for an internet that remains a free and universal form of communication.
WikiLeaks’ chief crime has been to speak truth to power. What is at
stake is nothing less than the freedom of the Internet.”

Jay Rosen of New York University’s
journalism school describes WikiLeaks as the first “stateless news agency.” The actions of WikiLeaks, he noted,
show our news organizations how “statist they really are,” and leakers
going to WikiLeaks rather than the traditional media shows how distrustful
people are of the corporate media. This all shows that the “watchdog press
has died” and
WikiLeaks is filling the void.

The void will exist—and be
filled—whether or not the Department of Justice prosecutes Julian
Assange. The
Economist writes:
“With or without WikiLeaks, the technology exists to allow whistleblowers
to leak data and documents while maintaining anonymity. With or without
WikiLeaks, the personnel, technical know-how, and ideological will exists
to enable anonymous leaking and to make this information available to
the public. Jailing Thomas Edison in 1890 would not have darkened the
night.”

The journalism democracy door
has been opened, power to report is being redistributed, government
employees and corporate whistleblowers are being empowered, and greater
transparency is becoming a reality. The United States would be better
off accepting these realities than prosecuting the news organization
that showed the way. Prosecution will highlight the utter hypocrisy
of the U.S. government, showing the world it does not mean what it says
when it claims that freedom of the speech and press are cornerstones
of democratic government.